Melissa Krchnak
By Melissa Krchnak
I’ve had a few friends over the last couple weeks who have pledged to stay off social media for a day or longer. While I applaud their restraint, I’m not sure I understand the motivation behind this extreme social media diet. For me, Facebook and Twitter simply fill in the gaps of a day rather than being a thief of my valuable time.
In all fairness, I will admit that I’m completely in love with Instagram and that it’s my go-to whenever I’m in need of a quick social media fix. But despite my penchant for grainy filters and pictures of my friends’ latest meals, I’m not at the point of needing a social media intervention because it hasn’t cut into my productivity at work. This isn’t the case for my friends though; I often see them struggling to get anything done because they’re too busy perusing posts or else creating status updates of their own. For these addicts, breaking up with social media—however temporary the split—is a necessity and the practice becomes a zero-sum game: Either stay off all social media sites completely, or else get nothing accomplished during the workday.
Are you your biggest hindrance? If so, it might be time for you to take a breather. I’m not saying you should abandon social media altogether; it’s still an important way to target potential clients in your market and increase awareness of your personal brand. What I’m advocating for instead is to give yourself the required space away from the “like” button to re-think your social media strategy. Instead of seeing social media as a hindrance, focus on getting more purposeful with the content you share so that you can view it as a benefit. Especially if social media is one of the major ways you connect with clients, make sure all information coming from your accounts is useful and interesting. By making social media more of a mindful business practice and less of a productivity inhibitor, you won’t be wasting time on the sites because really, you’ll be working.
So I ask: Is it time for you to have a social media intervention and change your ways?
Melissa Krchnak
By Melissa Krchnak
We often get asked, “What’s the return on investment on this or that?” And most times, we can quantify our answer. Although if it’s about Facebook, we might respond the way Gary Vaynerchuk would: “What’s the ROI of your mother?”
But do you know the difference between something being an expense versus asking about its ROI? As REALTORS®, we all probably have those inevitable monthly expenses: sign storage, database management software, and digital signature services. Have you ever taken the time to really think about these things and what they mean—and cost—for your business?
I was having this conversation with a colleague and here is how he described the difference: An expense is something in which we’ve yet to find the value. That was a big BOOM moment for me! I see the value in those “expenses” just listed and yet I’ve never questioned their ROI.
Go check your bank statement and see if there’s something on there you’re not finding valuable. That, my friend, is an expense. My advice is to pull out your income statement and clear your books of these “expenses” so you can better invest in items with an “ROI”. Don’t have an income statement handy? Here’s a sample chart to peruse.
Melissa Krchnak is the team leader for Keller Williams in Pikesville, MD. Connect with her on Twitter @mkrchnak.
Melissa Krchnak
By Melissa Krchnak
I’m often asked by REALTORS® how they can increase their online presence. What’s the best blogging platform? Which social media site will yield more ROI? Should I beef up my e-mail signature? What should I put on my Facebook page? How many Craigslist ads should I post a day and when? The answer is simple: Stop getting in your own way and do whatever it is that you want to do — and make it something you will actually stick to once you’ve time-blocked for it.
But here’s my take on these common questions listed above for boosting online presence.
- For me, the best blogging platform is WordPress: it’s easy to use, navigate and edit (i.e. A+ in my book).
- Instant messaging on Facebook and the search function on Twitter are tied for my favorite ways to build relationships with social media. Pinterest or LinkedIn might be better for you, but these two methods work most ideally for me.
- My e-mail signature is simple and it’s always been that way: I have two lines of info and a third row of 10 small social media/online icons that link to my online presence, which is courtesy of WiseStamp.
- For me, I don’t have a Facebook business page. Continue reading »
Laura Rubinchuk Schwartz
By Laura Rubinchuk Schwartz
It seems there’s a new hyped technology in real estate every week. Old favorites include Facebook, Craigslist, Twitter, Blogging, YouTube, and LinkedIn. But what about those sites that were so popular so fast and now we never hear about them anymore? Remember Posterous, Postlets, and now Pinterest? Real estate agents tend to kill technology quickly.
With so much to do every day to keep your business going, the biggest of which is lead generation, do you really have time to learn every new platform that suddenly emerges? Probably not. Should you? Probably not. As an agent who built my business on technology, I have a few suggestions for those of you who feel like you’re drowning in new technology and don’t know where to start, or where to find the time:
1. Figure out what works with your schedule: You can’t be the master of all trades, but you can master just a few. Some things take more of a commitment to make it work, ex. Twitter and Facebook are daily commitments for most. Other platforms may just an as-needed thing, like Postlets for advertising listings or Craigslist (if you don’t use Craigslist for lead generation).
2. Don’t waste time learning every new technology. I haven’t spent a single minute on Pinterest. I see Facebook friends posting wedding ideas or baby shower themes on there — don’t kill this by inundating useless real estate information on it. Don’t force a round peg in a square hole just because someone told you to.
3. Learn something so you’re comfortable with it, then use it as part of your lead generation. Continue reading »
Peter Lamandre
By Peter N. Lamandre
Well, it seems as though some more changes are coming to Facebook. Love it or hate it, timelines are hear to stay… and now timeline is coming to your business page.
Facebook recently announced that beginning March 30, 2012, your business page will be getting a facelift. The admins of business pages can preview the changes and play around with the new features. I’d strongly recommend you take a look at how your business page will appear after the change.
There are a few things you will want to do in preparation for the change.
- One of the first things you will want to do is add your cover photo, which is what people will first see when they visit your page. It would also be a good time to review your profile picture, which should be square and at least 180 pixels wide. The picture appears to be a bit larger then it does the old page, thus, you will want to make sure your profile picture is a bit higher quality so it does not look pixelated.
- You will also be able to control the order of things on your page, so make sure you play around with order of your apps as only the top 12 will be displayed.
- You will be able to highlight events in your timeline, such as making certain things wider and pin things to the top so everyone will see it first. A nice feature is the ability to delete posts and updates from your timeline should you want to omit it from your profile.
- You will be able to monitor your pages’ activity and interact with visitors all right from the admin panel. Continue reading »
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
Make a New Year’s resolution to better manage your name and online reputation. The first step is to figure out which social media platforms work best for you and your business. Check out my video to learn more.
Stefanie Hahn is the education director for Coldwell Banker Hearthside, REALTORS® in Collegeville, Pa. Visit her Web site: www.StefanieHahn.com.
David Krichmar
By David Krichmar
Any time you come in contact someone who needs a REALTOR®, you should add them to your database. Trust me, I know this idea in itself is not brilliant. Once you have a database, how do you keep in touch with those clients?
The key to having a database is to stay in touch with past clients, current clients, and future clients. Not just past clients. What about someone who contacted you but did not need your services at that time; that is defined as a “future” client. So if you don’t already, add every person and email address to your data base as soon as they contact you. Now would be a great time to start. Once you have a growing database, let’s talk about 5 ways to keep in touch with them.
- e-Newsletters - Again, not a rocket science idea; you probably already do this. But if not, start doing it. Many email marketing programs will do the newsletter for you and send it out monthly. Making this the easiest way to keep in touch. Make sure the newsletter does not just talk about real estate, but other topics as well. This gives a better chance of your contacts actually reading the information and finding it helpful. Keep in mind, not everyone needs a REALTOR® right at this moment. But they always are looking for helpful information.
- Friend them on Facebook - As Facebook has grown, the majority of folks are on Facebook daily. So friend your database on Facebook. This makes it easiest to keep up with their needs and life events. Most people look at Facebook as being private, so not all clients may accept your friend request. In this example I suggest just friending past clients, that way you have the strongest relationship with them. Continue reading »
Stefanie Hahn
By Stefanie Hahn
The letter X hasn’t fared too well in the dot-com era. Once the mark of secret pirate treasures and “sign here if you would please” contracts, it has been relegated to second-class status ever since Microsoft introduced Windows95 as the letter you looked for when you want to make things go away.
Facebook also selected the X as the “go away” letter. If you are using Facebook for business, this X can be really, really bad.
If you have never seen the X on Facebook, it hides in the upper right corner of every post made by your friends (and the pages you like). You don’t see it unless you hover over the post – it is pretty stealthy.
When you click the X on any Facebook post the system automatically presents you with a few different options:
Hide this post
Hide all from [USER]
Hide all from [APPLICATION] *if it was posted from a third party site like YouTube
I can tell you from personal experience that making the decision between the first two is very hard sometimes. I can think of a few occasions where I clicked the X thinking I was going to just hide a post – and then made a split-second decision to just hide the user instead. If this happens to you, the best social media strategy in the world won’t get you very far.
So why do I hide users? Continue reading »
Dave Robison
By Dave Robison
About 10 years ago when I started advertising online, I knew I only had a few years before the rest of the world caught up. When I first broke out my SEO and PPC campaign, I was paying $1,000 a month. It gave me heartburn at the time, but my business grew and flourished.
That first month I was dumbfounded how I turned $1,000 advertising into $20,000 in commissions. Sure enough, other agents started to do the same thing. My costs started to grow as it got more competitive. Back in January 2008, that cost grew to $20,000 in one month. Ouch. I hadn’t done anything different 7 years ago from that month, I had just let my campaign stay the same. I realized times change and you have to change as well, or one morning you will wake up saying “ouch” like I did that month.
The new secret to advertising is three-fold and its extremely cost effective!
1. Have a Facebook business page. You can’t just have a personal one. Use a personal one and a business page. There is a difference.
2. Focus on getting likes. Don’t pay for likes. Attract people to ‘LIKE’ your page. This is how you grow your sphere. You can see how I did this at www.facebook.com/utahdavehomes You must have a welcome page that brands you and invites people to ‘LIKE’ it. I went to www.builderonlinesolutions.com and for as low as a $199 promotion you can get your page branded for you. Continue reading »
Chris Nichols
By Chris Nichols
I had the unique opportunity to attend a special event this last Friday. I didn’t realize how unique this event was until I got there and heard the speaker admit that he was a little nervous as he had never spoken to a stadium full of people before. That was kind of shocking to me since the speaker was none other than the founder of a little website many of you use daily… Facebook!
That’s right, Mark Zuckerberg came to visit a few thousand of us packed into the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. There was a lot of buzz surrounding this event and he was greeted by an awestruck audience as he entered the facility to answer various questions that were posed to him, on what else but a Facebook page! Mark discussed many interesting things as he answered the wide spectrum of questions, but two of the answers intrigued me most.
The first question was regarding what college classes have been most beneficial to him. Mark admitted that he wasn’t in school for that long and that he was a double major in computer science and psychology. Surprisingly his response wasn’t a computer science course, it was psychology! He said, “At the end of the day, all of the problems we face are about people. People care about people.”
The second question was asked about what advice and or character traits a budding entrepreneur needs to possess. Mark’s answer was spot-on, “You have to have passion for what you are doing. If you don’t completely love or believe in what you are doing, the natural thing will be to give up when you face the challenges that will inevitably come. More than anything you have to really have faith in what you are doing.” Continue reading »
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